Hide and Seek
by Natty1899
Summary: After Jack soaks Natty for soaking Racetrack, he discovers she is a girl. Remorseful for fighting her, he offers the runaway a new life at the Lodging House. But can Natty adjust to relying on someone other than herself? And can she and Racetrack ever lea


CHAPTER ONE

_Gore said the first night on the street is always the hardest, _Natalie Kraven recalled, slamming her fist into the jaw of her opponent. _He didn't say nothing about the ones after that.  
_It was midnight in Manhattan, and Natty had been half asleep when she heard someone rummaging through her bag. Not wasting any time with inquiries, she had attacked the intruder without so much as a word.  
He was a young lad about her age – nineteen. He had dark hair and a gourd-shaped, freckled face, but that was all Natty could discern about him in the dark. The boy's head whipped backwards upon sudden impact, but Natty knew his jaw wasn't broken.  
Groaning from the pain, he stopped to instinctively reach for his jaw to check the damage. Natty didn't wait for him to figure out she had only bruised it; she kicked him hard in the torso, and he stumbled backwards and fell.  
The rooftop they were fighting on was damp from a recent shower. Natty stood her ground, refusing to hit someone while they were down, but ready for a retaliatory attack from him.  
From _him._ Not from whoever came out of nowhere beside her, driving his fist into her cheek with a surprising precision. Natty was shocked, but she tried to recover quickly. Whirling around, her left eye closed and the space around it already purpling into an unattractive shiner, Natty was simply too slow. Her attacker grabbed her arms from behind and twisted them sharply against her back. The pressure he applied was strong enough that if she tried to struggle free from his grip, she would only damage herself.  
She tried to ground herself, all the while wondering who the _hell _this other kid was, and how he had managed to sneak up on her and surprise her so quickly.  
"Ya arright, Race?" came the voice behind her, low and dripping with street New York accent.  
Her original opponent moaned, reduced to a pile on the roof. "Yeah, Jack. I gotta tell you, though, you got nothin' on this guy."  
She heard a grin in the voice behind her. "Is that right?" he was asking her.  
"No," Natty spoke suddenly, and the shock from the remaining two parties was palpable. "I'm not a guy."  
The guy behind her – Jack, Natty presumed – spun her to face him in his shock. She felt him take her in. Her pale skin was smudged with dirt, and her long fair-colored hair tucked up underneath her papa's old cap, but she knew her features were too delicate and feminine to be mistaken for a boy's when closely scrutinized.  
She glared at him with undisguised contempt through gold eyes, beneath long lashes.  
Immediately she saw his remorse. He had really, truly thought she was a boy. It seemed Jack of the strong right hook was not the lowlife she had initially pegged him for.  
"No kiddin'," Jack muttered, refusing to meet her gaze. Natty was truly surprised. Was he that much of a gentleman? He didn't look it. "My apologies, miss, for handlin' you so rough."  
"You call that rough?" she mumbled, fingering her purple bruise. The guy who had been called Race laughed from across the roof, stalking towards them.  
Jack paused a moment, thinking. "Well, no. I suppose what you did to my pal Racetrack over there was rough."  
"He was trying to rob me," Natty snarled in her own defense.  
Jack shot a quick glance at Race. "Ain't you got nothin' to say for yourself, stealing from a lady?"  
"I wasn't tryna steal from her!" Race yelled, outraged. "I only saw some bag over there. I didn't know nobody lived here. I wanted to see what it was doin' here."  
"Well, you saw. Didn't you?" Natty accused, though part of her venom was gone, as she believed him in spite of herself.  
It was clear from the way Race looked at her that he wished very much she was a boy, so he could soak her for her trouble. "And I wish I hadn't!" he fired back.  
"Fellas," Jack said, then, glancing at Natty, seemed to regret it. "Er. What d'they call ya, kid?"  
Natty paused. She doubted they would leave if she didn't tell them. "Rye." It was as good a name as any.  
"Rye. Well, I'm Jack, and this here is Racetrack. You live up here?" He looked around.  
"For the moment." Natty watched him curiously. He was quite fine to look at – she cursed herself for thinking – with wavy brown hair long enough to shade his eyes ever so slightly, and dimples thick when he grinned. He was tall, over six feet, she imagined.  
She didn't trust him.  
"You hungry?"  
Her stomach almost growled in reply. She couldn't remember the last thing she'd eaten that hadn't come from a trashcan.  
"No. Thanks," she added, somewhat begrudgingly.  
Jack grinned again, and his dimples were lovely, as she had remembered. "Well, then how 'bout you come with us and take some food back for later?"  
She was almost glad he'd seen through her, but remained unwilling to give him that small satisfaction yet. She couldn't trust him. She didn't trust him, no matter how much a part of her was wanting to.  
_Gore,_ she thought sadly, _he reminds me of you.  
_He regarded her thoughtfully, uncertain as she was about him. "Anyways, I owe you a debt, don't I? For the shiner. I figure that costs me a meal at least."_  
_She didn't trust him, but any runaway would be a downright fool to turn down free food, even from a stranger. She had no idea when another offer like this would come around again.  
She nodded, a slight twitch.  
"Jack," Race protested, nursing his bruised jaw. "You gotta be kiddin' me. We don't know her, we don't know nothin' about her-"  
"Will ya shut up already?" Jack said, in what sounded to Natty like a warning. It worked. Racetrack was silent as they climbed down the fire escape, Jack first, Race second, and Natty trailing them behind.

CHAPTER TWO

The food Jack Kelly and Racetrack got for her was simple enough – beef stew at the place they lived, called (she learned) the Lodging House for the Manhattan Newsboys, along with fat bread rolls and frothy milk. But to Natty, it was the finest thing she had ever eaten.Sulkily, Racetrack had padded upstairs, but Jack had stayed with her. He didn't eat more than a nibble or two, but watched her, as if her devouring all the food placed before her was interesting to him.  
Self-consciously, Natty paused mid-chew to look at him. She couldn't read him for the life of her. And it was somewhat embarrassing, eating like a pig while he just sat there _looking_ at her, like she was an exotic bird at the Manhattan Zoo.  
"Thank you for the food," Natty said then, because she had to say _something_ and she realized that in her hunger and enthusiasm, she had yet to tell him that.  
Jack rewarded her words with a crooked grin. "Kloppman's sister made too much," he explained. "The bunch of us eat like horses, but the stew's bound to go bad before the lot of us could eat it all."  
"Who's Kloppman?" Natty inquired, nibbling with restraint at her remaining roll.  
"He's the old man runs this joint. He ain't so bad most of the time. He gives us a place to live. I dunno where I'd be if he ain't – back on the streets, I guess."  
"Were you a waif, too?" she asked, using the slang term for street kid.  
"Yeah." Jack grabbed a roll and bit into it heartily. "For a long time," he added somewhat quietly, and Natty didn't press him any further.  
After they were done eating, Jack spoke up. "I wasn't gonna mention it again, but cripes, I gotta do somethin' 'bout that eye."  
Natty's hand went instinctively to her face, where she felt the bruise swell against her cheek. It would be a nasty shiner.  
"I suppose you owe me as much," she conceded, and he seemed to agree.  
"It ain't every day I soak a gal who soaked my buddy on a rooftop."  
"Well," Natty said, leaning against the wooden chair and relaxing a bit, "he did deserve it."  
Jack's silence only confirmed that he didn't blame Natty for soaking Race. He started tending to her eye.  
"I ain't never nursed nobody's cuts before," he assured her, "but I can't look at yous without damning myself."  
Jokingly and with flourish, Natty removed her Papa's cap and adjusted her hair so that it covered half her face. "How 'bout now?"  
And he did laugh then, a light rolling sound that was as much boy as it was man. Beneath the carefully adopted shield of his eyes, she watched something move, something unreadable, before it quickly disappeared. For whatever reason, Jack had become very good at hiding.


End file.
